


Plus One

by lonelywalker



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Uncle Saul takes a lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plus One

_"What would your plus one say about this?"  
"My what?"  
"Your boyfriend."_

You don't expect to ever pick a guy up at the symphony. Honestly, you don't expect to ever pick a guy up _anywhere_. In your daydreams it always happens at an East Hollywood bar when you finally get up the nerve to go out there by yourself, or you're introduced to some older friend of Scotty's who's just returned from Europe. The symphony might attract its fair share of gay men, but it's a place for quiet and respect, not for ogling possible sexual partners. People bring their wives here. They bring their families.

You bring a book.

You always get there early, to order a drink for the intermission and take your seat so that people have to climb over you rather than you over them. It's better that way. You can feel quietly superior as they scrabble around in the dark and encounter glares and knees and elbows coming at them from every angle.

One day, before a performance of a string quartet about which you've only heard good things, you meet Henry Mittner when he trips over your feet. The first thing he ever says to you is, "Sorry", and you notice his smile before the scruffy beard. You notice his eyes before the shabby clothes that don't quite belong within these hallowed walls.

The second thing he ever says to you is, "Are you really reading that?"

And, no, you're not, because you've just finished the very last page.

***

Henry buys you coffee after the performance. You'd both prefer wine, but you're driving, and he mentions something about the fallacy of riding a bike while drunk (you can imagine him equally well in a helmet and leathers as on a rickety old bicycle). The string quartet forgotten, he takes potshots at the book as you sip at a drink so hot it's barely palatable, and find it impossible to take offense even as he counts out in so many sugar packets the ways in which this beautiful, erudite, inspiring novel is nothing but idle pretension in a tidily-designed jacket.

You want him.

You find yourself hoping that your words will make him smile rather than cut through his argument, leaving him utterly defeated in the wake of your brilliance. You want him to win, to enjoy winning, to enjoy sitting here with you in the increasingly late hours of the evening. It seems childish to be attracted to someone like this, to someone you've just met, but you _like_ him, and perhaps he likes you too.

He asks you out before you even have a chance to wonder if he's gay, to figure it out by way of some cunningly subtle line of questioning. You go home that night with his phone number in your pocket, and the very potential of it scares you as much as it should thrill you.

You call him early the next morning to thank him for the coffee.

Henry, half-asleep still, calls you "Saulie", and tells you it was an absolute pleasure.

***

You wait all evening to kiss him. Taking initiative in a relationship isn't something you've ever done easily, and you tell yourself over and over that you can't be truly sure that this even _is_ a relationship. But Henry's arm rests lightly against your shoulders as he listens to Beethoven with his eyes closed in the lounge of his Silver Lake apartment. It's the simplest, best date you've ever had.

You lean over, and kiss him.

You've never kissed anyone with a beard before, and Henry, laughing against your lips, offers to shave in future, but you like it. It's all right. For the first time in a long time, you're in the arms of someone you genuinely care about, who you're genuinely attracted to, beyond all logic or need for social graces.

Henry has _The Count of Monte Cristo_ lying open on his pillow, and you tell him off for dogearing the pages as he unbuttons your shirt. You're nervous about every second of it, anxious in a way you would have grown out of as a teenager if you'd just had the chance.

Naked, Henry's gorgeous in a way that only makes you even more embarrassed.

As he pulls you close in the darkness, you know that you could stay with him forever.

***

His family's crazy too, he tells you cheerfully the first time you try to tell him about your relatives. By the time you're counting off Nora's children on your fingers, and adding in Robert, Scotty, Julia, and the grandkids, he's pulled out a pen and started to take notes. You want him to meet them – to show him off, to have them _like_ him – but the Walkers have always been more complicated than even their family tree might entail. So you don't tell him about the baby shower, despite the fact that Nora and Justin and probably the entire clan know by now.

You're far too scared of rejection.

After arguing with Kevin at San Estephe, you go to him, partly wanting him to agree that it's horribly homophobic to invite gay men to a baby shower. Henry, surrounded in Alzheimer's Association paperwork, patiently listens to every word before taking your hand and telling you, very quietly and sincerely, that he'd be delighted to go.

You're equal parts happy to be with him, and terrified that your family will rip him to shreds. Fortunately, they have far more drama than simply meeting your sweet, inoffensive boyfriend on their minds – when do they not?

"Are you really allergic to apricots?" you ask later, nursing both a headache and a well-earned glass of Scotch.

You can hear Henry's laughter all the way down the hall.

***

You suspect that this relationship was serious from the first night you met. You're both too old and, more to the point, too experienced, to waste time on nothing more than great sex and little emotional involvement. But, after the shower, there's something new. He's your _boyfriend_ ("Partner," Henry corrects, before deciding that "boyfriend" makes him sound at least twenty years younger). You spend most evenings together on the phone if not in person, swap apartment keys, buy each other ridiculous socks. Henry has a Walker family tree stuck up on his fridge next to his concert schedule.

You love him more than he knows.

Plans for dinners with Kevin and Scotty, Justin and Rebecca, Tommy and Julia are made and discarded in the wake of Robert's heart attack and the Ojai fiasco. You're scared and furious beyond belief, witnessing your family being ripped apart by legal, financial, and romantic concerns.

Henry's busy too, but, more than anything, he's _there_. You finally have someone of your own to go to, to be happy with, even when the world around you is more cold and hostile than ever. Not only a lover, or your awkward "plus one", but family. _Your_ family.

"Thank you," you whisper, held in his arms at last. "For everything."

Henry kisses your temple, and smiles.


End file.
